A. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to information search and retrieval and, more particularly, to determining equivalent descriptions for an information need based on multiple references to that same information need.
B. Description of Related Art
The World Wide Web (“web”) contains a vast amount of information. Locating a desired portion of the information, however, can be challenging. Unless the user is aware of the specific location of the desired information, the user must rely on a service to assist in locating the information. Typically, the user will identify the information sought via a query of some form, and the service will attempt to direct the user to the information based on the query.
Unfortunately, however, the user cannot always formulate the query in a sufficient manner as to obtain all of the information that the user desires. For example, the user may have an information need that can be described in multiple ways, but the user may only be aware of a limited way of describing that information need. In such a case, the user may obtain only a subset of the desired information.
It would be helpful, therefore, to have methods and apparatus for determining equivalent ways of describing an information need.